


Candle In The Dark

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-21
Updated: 2010-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:56:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was 2003, and the entire east coast of the United States just lost power. Job complete, Arthur takes Ariadne around New York City.</p><p>For the inception_kink prompt: <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/12989.html?thread=28837053#t28837053">New York City Blackout. No electricity, no metro, no conditional air, no light. Just candles, books and the very old Arthur's gramophone.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Candle In The Dark

The apartment was dark when they woke from the kick, and Ariadne rubbed her eyes. "Okay, this is strange."

Yusuf chuckled somewhere to her left. "The entire city's in the middle of a blackout. Worst one since '77, they're saying." He moved to help remove her line; Arthur and Eames tended to simply yank theirs out and leave as soon as possible if there was trouble. "So? How'd it go?"

"Easy as pie," Eames replied. Sure enough, he yanked his line out and simply pressed down on the entry site with his fingers. Yusuf was sure he did it just to piss him off. "We didn't actually need to go two layers down for this one."

"He could've been militarized," Arthur replied. He removed his own line with a little more care than Eames had and shrugged at Eames' incredulous expression. "It was better to be safe than sorry. The important thing is, we got everything we needed." He looked around the subject's darkened apartment, glad that it was daytime. "Good thing the PASIV has its own battery."

Eames snorted and rose. "Blackout, eh? I suppose that means all of the flights are canceled?"

"Another job lined up so soon?" Yusuf asked, starting to coil the tubes.

"Family thing," he replied abruptly, which was his general code for _I'm not going to answer that_ without being rude. He and Yusuf were friends, after all, and they knew each other well by now.

"Blackout's totally paralyzed the city. You'd have to take a bus or cab to the airports, but even then, nothing's moving."

"Bugger that," Eames sighed.

"It's taken over the entire east coast, too." Yusuf handed the case to Arthur. "I suppose you have a different exit strategy?"

"I have a place nearby," Arthur admitted with a sigh. "It's off the grid, if any of you need a place to hide."

Eames shook his head. "I can get out of the city, no problem. Thanks for the offer, though."

The subject remained sleeping on his own bed when they all left. Eames went off in one direction and Yusuf in another. Ariadne looked at Arthur as they exited the building. "I didn't know you had a place here. Are you from New York?"

"Born and raised," Arthur admitted. He grinned at her surprise. "What? We all have to come from somewhere."

"Considering we can't actually leave, then, can you show me around? I've never been here before."

Normally Arthur didn't spend too much time after jobs with the people he worked with. It wasn't often a good idea, but everyone was milling about aimlessly in the streets. They would simply be two more people in the financial district of New York wondering how they were going to get home with no electricity.

He was about to say no, but stopped abruptly. If they had ever been alone since the Fischer job, they had always been working. This would be an unprecedented opportunity to be alone with her and really get to know her outside of the job.

"Yes," he heard himself say before he realized he meant to accept. "Let's go to the Village. There's bound to be Cooper Union kids around. They're always fun to look at."

"What do you mean?"

"It's an art school. It's been a while since I've been here, but the kids sometimes did sidewalk art or graffiti or street performing. And if there isn't any electricity, they're probably all outside and getting attention at Cooper Square."

Ariadne perked up at that. "Sounds like fun."

"The Village usually is."

As they walked, Arthur found himself telling her what it was like attending Stuyvesant High School, where his classes could be on completely different floors of the building. Ariadne had gone to school in the midwest, so her high school had been a sprawling campus with less than two hundred students per grade. Arthur had laughed and described overfull classes, a graduating class of eight hundred and having his guidance counselor catching him on the back steps smoking pot one afternoon his junior year.

"I can't see that," she had laughed, shaking her head. "That sounds so reckless."

Arthur grinned, enjoying her surprise. There wasn't any judgment in her tone, just an unadulterated joy in getting to know him. He was feeling the same way, which was new; most of the time Arthur tended to be all business around people he didn't know. Ariadne seemed to get under his skin, however. He had been concerned about her from the moment they first met, and it wasn't always in an overprotective sense. He _liked_ her, he realized, and couldn't help but grin even wider at her.

"I learned not to do it on school grounds anymore. That's why I started hanging out down here and getting to know some of the Cooper Union kids." On impulse, he took her hand in his and pulled her along the street to point out the places he used to spend time in when he was a teenager. "Some of them were pretty far out there."

"So what happened next?"

"My mother convinced me to join the Army to help pay for college."

"Ah... That explains it." Arthur looked over at her with a questioning expression. "You're way too organized to be a stoner."

Laughing, they reached Cooper Square. Sure enough, people were milling about, but not too many street performers. They had walked pretty far from the financial district, even though it hadn't seemed like it. "I can't believe we walked this far," Ariadne sighed. They managed to sit on the front steps to a brownstone and watched other people go by. She eased out of her shoes; while they weren't very high heels and she had gone with Arthur at a fairly sedate pace, they weren't walking shoes. "So where is your apartment in comparison to here?"

Arthur shrugged, watching people go by. "We're in the East Village now. I actually live on the Upper West Side when I'm here. It's kind of a far walk, and I'm sure the subways aren't working right now." He smiled at her groan. "I take it we're not walking that far."

"Hell, no." She grinned as she rubbed at the soles of her feet. "I'm pretty footsore. Maybe we can catch a cab?"

"We're not far from Park Avenue. That should be easy to do."

They shared a cab with a stranded businessman as far as Carnegie Hall, then walked to Columbus Circle. "My apartment's only a two blocks away, on Central Park West."

"I can't believe you live _here,"_ Ariadne said in awe, looking around her. "This is a wonderful place to live."

Arthur looked around, trying to see it with less jaded eyes. He normally didn't even pay attention to his surroundings; it was busy and full of frantic people walking around, getting on or off buses and subways. He normally didn't look at the archway leading to Central Park, or the elegance in the buildings around them. He didn't stop and observe people when they passed him by unless he was in the Village, and even then it was getting to be more and more gentrified compared to what he remembered as a teenager. He usually just took it all for granted, since he had grown up with it.

"I guess it is. I don't really think about it."

"You don't..." Ariadne shook her head. "You live in Lincoln Center, right next to Central Park. Your view must be _amazing."_

"Want to come up?" he asked without stopping to think about it.

"Of course!"

There was no electricity in the building, so that left them climbing the twelve flights of stairs to get to Arthur's apartment. Climbing up the stairs wasn't that difficult, even in heels in the dark. There were the emergency exit lights at every floor entrance, and Arthur held up his cell phone as another light source for Ariadne. The screen went dark every two minutes, which meant he had to flick it shut or press a key to get the screen illuminated again. Ariadne laughed when he stumbled and cursed at a landing when the light died out and his toes caught the top step. "It's good to know you're not always as perfect as you make yourself seem," Ariadne giggled.

"Why is that a good thing?" Arthur asked in an aggrieved tone.

"Because then you're not out of my league after all."

Arthur was suddenly very, very aware of the fact that they were the only ones in the stairwell, there was no AC in the building and he was in the lead. Which meant she was staring at his ass.

Not knowing what else to say, he led her to his apartment. It was strange to be there with no one else lingering in the hallway for him to pretend to care about. He had grown up here, which made it a somewhat comforting place to go to in between jobs. He had Ariadne stay by the front door; the drapes were drawn to keep the furniture from fading while he was away, and he didn't trust her dark adapted vision to be able to make her way around the maze that was the cluttered living room. Arthur slid his way around the couches and arm chairs effortlessly and drew the drapes, letting in the lingering afternoon light. He started to open the windows as Ariadne approached, eyes going everywhere. The air was stale from the apartment being locked up tight for months at a time, and the open windows would be the only source of air into the apartment.

There were twelve foot high ceilings with crown molding, and most of the furniture was baroque in style. There was a lot of oak and cherry wood, gilt framed pictures and mirrors, even an old gramophone on a side table beside a large glass dish meant for keys. The living room was stuffed to the gills with furniture, not a television in sight. After taking all of it in, Ariadne turned to look at Arthur. "Wow."

"I lived with my grandmother. This was her apartment, and she left it to me when she died." Arthur sat down on one of the couches. "I haven't changed a thing, so this pretty much the exact way it looked while I was growing up."

"Pretty much?"

"More photos on the wall, if you want to look," he said, pointing to one wall of framed photos. Ariadne went to inspect the photos, wishing they had arrived earlier in the afternoon when the light would have been better. She saw pictures of people that had to be Arthur's parents and grandparents, as well as pictures of a very young Arthur. He had been all skinny knees and elbows, with a cheeky grin and an almost impish cast to his eyes. Arthur smiled when he saw the rapt expression on her face, and he moved to the kitchen to rummage for matches and candles. They were his grandmother's old taper candles for fancy dinners, which he remembered. Even when it was just the two of them, she insisted on using the fine china, formal silverware and silver candlesticks. _Trust me, Arthur,_ she had told him thousands of times when he complained about setting the table for dinner. _This kind of knowledge is important. It's not the silverware, but the respect for the one you're dining with._

Ariadne was pleasantly amazed by the elaborate silver candlesticks and fine ivory tapers. "This place is amazing."

"I guess I took all this stuff for granted," Arthur admitted. "Come on. I think you'll like the view."

They sat on the couch that was turned to face the window. "It's beautiful, Arthur," Ariadne said, looking out over Central Park. She had the feeling that this was a private place, not something that he freely shared with others. "Thank you for sharing it with me."

Arthur hadn't planned to kiss her, but he hadn't planned to kiss her during the Fischer job either. Their mouths met, and this time neither pulled away as soon their lips connected. This kiss was still soft and unsure, exploring what could be.

He needed more. She needed more.

Her mouth opened and she touched her tongue to his lips. Smiling against her mouth, Arthur opened his mouth and stroked her tongue with his. He wound his hands through her hair, feeling the beginning of a breeze stir the air around them. Ariadne wound her arms around him, deepening the kiss, nearly falling over and crawling into his lap. When they broke the kiss to breathe, they merely stared at each other for a long moment. "Not just me, then?" Arthur asked in a soft voice. She shook her head and gave him an almost shy smile. "Good."

When the sun went down, Arthur lit the candles and placed them around the apartment. There was nothing in the refrigerator but baking soda, but the cabinets held canned goods that could last forever. The pilot light on the gas stove was out, so Arthur lit it with a candle and soon enough there were noodles, canned soup and hot tea as an impromptu dinner. He looked up and noticed that same expression on Ariadne's face, the soft look in her eyes made more ethereal with the candlelight. She had set the table while he had worked by candlelight, and he had pointed at the cabinet with the fine china his grandmother had always used with dinners. She had set everything out perfectly, their places set side by side.

"You know, I'm glad the power went out."

"You are?"

"I don't think we've ever spent the day together like this before. It was always work or hiding or..."

Ariadne came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his middle, her cheek pressed against his back. "I feel the same way."

He could imagine evenings like this for a long time to come. Maybe it was too soon to really tell, but this felt like something he could look forward to for years, something he could someday tell their children about. Arthur knew he had a goofy smile on his face, and he ducked his head slightly even though she couldn't see it. He rubbed her arm around his stomach fondly. "You know, my grandmother always used to say that the formal dinner settings were a sign of respect. She was really old fashioned that way."

"She sounds like a great woman, your grandmother. Kind of like how mine was. Though, completely different taste in furniture," Ariadne said with a laugh. "Yours is so elegant, and my grandmother had old mismatched furniture all beat up by all us grandkids spilling juice and food all over the place. My grandmother used to nickname them badges of honor."

Arthur laughed and turned in her arms to face her. For a moment, he almost wondered what kind of grandparents they would make, but that was presuming too much, even for him. "She sounds like she was a great woman, too."

"My mom always says I'm just like her. Still think she's a great woman?" she teased.

"Definitely."

Dinner was actually fun, talking about their respective childhood memories of their grandmothers and high school. Afterward, Arthur showed her the rest of the apartment by candlelight. The view from the windows were dark and still, not something she associated with New York City at all. Ariadne leaned up on her tip toes to take another kiss. She smiled against his lips when his arms automatically wound around her waist.

"Let's dance," Arthur murmured.

"No electricity," she reminded him.

His smile was that self assured one she was used to. "Trust me on this."

The table beneath the gramophone held his grandmother's old records. He found one of her favorites, a big band tune he had listened to thousands of times as he grew up. He wound up the old gramophone, smiling to himself that he knew exactly how many cranks of the handle would keep it running long enough to play the record. He pulled the record from its sleeve and put the needle on it carefully, then turned to Ariadne with a grin.

She was ethereal in the candlelight, her hair like a halo around her face. The only space to dance was at the edge of the living room, right where the vestibule ended. He held out his hand to her, and she took it immediately. "Know how to dance to this?" he asked as the music started. She shook her head. "Don't worry. I'll teach you."

Ariadne stumbled through the steps, cringing when she caught his toes beneath her shoes. After a moment, they both kicked off their shoes and started again in their socks. Ariadne laughed with delight once she was able to do the steps once through without damaging Arthur's feet, which of course led her to turn too fast and lose her balance. Arthur caught her in his arms, pulling her close and flush against his chest. She wound her arms around him and looked up at his face with a content smile. It wasn't often that she got to see this side of him, that they were able to just be themselves together.

They swayed together even after the gramophone stopped and the silence settled around them. The candles were all burning low, but Ariadne wasn't willing to let go of him yet. Arthur held her close, heart racing a little as his hands strayed down her back.

Yawning wide enough to make her jaw crack, Ariadne sighed. "You'd think I'd feel better rested considering that we dream for a living."

Arthur laughed. "Need to go to bed?"

She tightened her hold on him when he moved back a little. "With you, maybe? I mean, not necessarily like _that_ right now, but..."

"I know exactly what you mean."

His bedroom faced the park, and he pulled her close to him as they laid down on the bed, a single candle lighting the room. "We'll wake up once the sun rises," he murmured, pulling her back flat against his front. She laced her fingers through his, and he inhaled the scent of her deeply. "Thanks for spending the day with me," he murmured softly, thumb rubbing circles against the back of her hand.

"There was nowhere else I wanted to be," Ariadne replied honestly.

Arthur twisted slightly to blow out the last candle. They fell asleep comfortably to the sound of each other breathing.

 

The End


End file.
